we invited phil hoyle to come and talk with our team about the findings of listening to the voice of the pioneer, a new research report commissioned and published by ccx with research done by joe warton. the research was conducted through a series of conversations/interviews and joe draws out seven findings. but before phil got into those findings the first thing he commented on was that when joe had done the research and met with phil to talk about it the first thing he said was that pioneers exist! he had talked to them and realised they brought something distinctive. our team laughed out loud…

we have spent the last 15 years meeting, encouraging, networking with, supporting, training, building a movement of pioneers. in fact we did a count up and have had about 1000 people who have done some training (a module, a certificate, an award) with us since 2010 through a hub or through durham or roehampton universities. we have seen them go on adventures of the imagination following their ideas and what they see to build new things for good in the world – charities, projects, ministries, churches, new communities, enterprises. and we are just one of several groups encouraging and networking and training pioneers – fresh expressions, methodists, incarnate network, urban expression, church army, ccx to name a few others. so yes they exist alright and at cms we have celebrated and advocated for them and the gift they bring . i am actually proud of cms and how they have stayed invested and not done what seems so tempting which is to think we’ve done that, and chase after the next new shiny thing. deep change takes time.

tina on our team has written some reflections here on the research – her favourite finding was that pioneers are deeply theological – largely i think because it blows away a stereotype.

i like the way the the report is structured in four sections –

• who are the pioneers?
• what helps pioneers to flourish?
• navigating challenges
• what kind of training might help pioneers?

it’s pretty easy to read. whilst i am tempted to highlight the training section because we run training that does what pioneers say they want in this report, i think if i were to pick one thing that caught my attention it was a section around what happens in a pioneer themselves in relation to recognising themslves as a pioneer and responding to that sense of calling. the report says three things happen. firstly they recognise something different about themselves. then they recognise they don’t fit a traditionally defined role. and thirdly the language of pioneering helped them recognise their calling

on that third point here’s the paragraph from the report:

Having recognised something different about themselves, sensed some kind of call, and recognised they didn’t fit more traditional forms of ministry – they found the term ‘pioneer’ provided them with both the language and the category to understand who they are, and what they are being called to.
They found this helpful for themselves – bringing a sense of self-understanding as well as having a sense of ‘what l’m doing/ being drawn to is a real thing. None of them said they heard about pioneering, and then decided to become pioneers. It was always the other way round – they were pioneers before they came across the language of pioneering.

i found this so interesting that the language of pioneering helped people recognise their calling and it shows why it is so helpful for the church to recognise like joe that pioneers do exist. so let’s keep using the language!

thanks to joe, phil, ccx for commissioning and doing the research. do have a read….